Is everybody mostly watching YouTube these days? I have shows I watch on other streamers, but they feel like drops in a sea that is mostly YouTube. People doing things, making things, fixing things. That’s the good stuff!
Anyway, knitting YouTubers love to call a particular format of video a “podcast” — if you know why they do this, please let me know, because a podcast is a thing, and that thing is… not a video on YT? In these videos they talk about what they’ve finished (FOs), what they’re working on (WIPs), and what they’re planning or yarn they’ve acquired. I like that format, so here we go:
Finished Objects
I wound up being a liar when I said in my 2025 recap that I wouldn’t be finishing anything else before the end of the year. I had two WIPs that had been lying dormant for a while, and I decided not to bring them into the new year that way.
This was the third Felix cardigan I’ve knit, although you’ll notice it’s NOT a cardigan. The first one I made is one of my most-worn knits, and then I made a second and hardly wore it, so Kid 1 has taken it over. I bought the yarn for this one in Scotland — a wool/bamboo (viscose) blend that I held with mohair. I thought the colors I’d chosen were cream and taupe, but when I saw them in better light, I realized they were actually off-white and gray. So step one was that I knit a Felix cardigan, and step two was that I dyed it to the colors you see above. It’s actually a little warmer than the photo.
When I blocked the cardigan, it dried a lot bigger than I expected, which made it really awkward to wear. And the collar and button band felt clunky. So I threw it to the side and got on with knitting other things. Until I pulled it out last week and decided to work with what I had. I took out the collar and button band, seamed it up the front to create a pullover, and then reknit the collar on much smaller needles. The seam is not invisible, but I’ve decided it’s like a shirt with a flat-felled seam down the front. That’s a thing, so mine is too. I don’t think this will wind up being a favorite sweater, but it’s very soft and comfortable, so it’ll get worn, and I’m glad I could rescue it from being a disappointing cardigan.
My other FO was a project for Kid 2 and… not my usual color palette!
I actually used the Felix pullover as a base for this, but I should have just used standard raglan increases. This yarn is Knitpicks Wool of the Andes that I dyed with Kool-aid and food coloring when the kids were little. Even that variegated black (which I love)! Kid 2 loves insects, so she got a little moth motif. This was just a project to use up some scraps of yarn, not something I’ll treasure forever. If Kid 2 gets sick of it, I’ll overdye it with beige to make everything more neutral and wear it myself as a cropped top.
Works in Progress
I knocked out both the FOs in the last week of the year, but most of the month was spent working on my Easy V.
It’s been a very quick knit, but I finished that first sleeve, realized it was too long, and now I’ve been hit with decision paralysis about how I want to proceed. I have to try it on again. I COULD leave the sleeve this length, and it would be more or less fine. What I SHOULD do is take out an inch or more from the middle of the sleeve and graft the two ends together. It wouldn’t be that difficult, but I don’t wanna. So I’m stuck while the two lazy wolves inside of me battle it out.
I will say that I love the colors I picked out. It’s estate sale yarn, of course, and I only had a couple of options for the main body color but loads for the colorwork. I really wasn’t convinced about the gray until I started knitting — now I love it all together. I’m very neutral about the motif itself, but the colors are great.
While I grumped about what to do re: sleeves on that sweater, I caked up some Aran-weight yarn and started a Good Grandpa cardigan. It’s in its ugly duckling phase:
I started this last Saturday and did the entire body in one week. I was craving boring knitting, and this sure delivered! I’m really excited to wear this, so I’ve been knitting like the dickens.
The yarn is one of the colors my mom brought back from the estate sale, and for a long time I wasn’t even sure I’d wind up using it. The first several times I looked at it, I thought it was a strand of navy plied with a strand of forest green (a very 90s combo, imo), but the “navy” is actual charcoal. And knitted up, it’s a black-green that I’m really liking. When I blocked my gauge swatch, the yarn bloomed in a lovely way, so I’m very eager to finish this and block it and see the yarn “come to life”.
I almost forgot, but I also worked on some DK socks, using the free Biscuit sock pattern:
Aren’t they cute? I really like the textured heel flap, even though it’s such a small detail. I used 100% sYnThEtIc yarn on these. I am a natural fiber brat, but I found several skeins of this super-soft acrylic/nylon blend at the thrift store over the summer and bought them all, thinking I’d made a sweater for one of the kids. But the yarn is this cream color and a very pale purple-gray. Not very kid friendly. How this yarn holds up to being worn as a sock is still TBD, but it’s comfy! I’m almost to the heel of the second sock but got distracted by starting that cardigan at the end of the month.
Plans
Obviously no new acquisitions, since I’m not allowed. But I do have plans! Unless I’m struck by a blast of knitting ennui, I should be easily able to finish up my two WIPs in January. Next up is Teti Lutsak’s Forest Keys vest.
I also have some sock yarn that I want to try dyeing. Specifically, I’d like to make my own self-striping yarn. So that’ll be something to figure out, and hopefully I’ll have some results to show by next month!
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